Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Truth and its Deformities
05 Sep 2008-
About: The article was published on 2008-09-05. It has received 259 citations till now.
Citations
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01 Dec 2008
TL;DR: The situated cognition movement in the cognitive sciences, like those sciences themselves, is a loose-knit family of approaches to understanding the mind and cognition that has developed primarily since the late 1970s as an alternative to, or a modification of, the then predominant paradigms for exploring the mind within the cognitive Sciences.
Abstract: 1. The Situation in Cognition The situated cognition movement in the cognitive sciences, like those sciences themselves, is a loose-knit family of approaches to understanding the mind and cognition. While it has both philosophical and psychological antecedents in thought stretching back over the last century (see Gallagher, this volume, Clancey, this volume,), it has developed primarily since the late 1970s as an alternative to, or a modification of, the then predominant paradigms for exploring the mind within the cognitive sciences. For this reason it has been common to characterize situated cognition in terms of what it is not, a cluster of "anti-isms". Situated cognition has thus been described as opposed to Platonism, Cartesianism, individualism, representationalism, and even
234 citations
TL;DR: It was found that moral exemplars had stronger motivational themes of both agency and communion, were more likely to construe critical life events redemptively, more frequently identified helpers in early life, and reported more secure attachments.
Abstract: Two contrasting types of moral exemplars were examined so as to identify personality variables associated with moral action. The sample comprised 50 Canadian awardees for either exceptional bravery or caring, as well as 50 comparison participants. Participants responded to a set of personality questionnaires and a life-review interview. Personality variables were found to substantially augment moral cognition in the prediction of exemplary action. In support of the notion that there is a personological core to the moral domain, it was found that moral exemplars were distinguished from the comparison groups by themes embodied in their life narratives. Specifically, moral exemplars had stronger motivational themes of both agency and communion, were more likely to construe critical life events redemptively, more frequently identified helpers in early life, and reported more secure attachments. Furthermore, the personality of caring exemplars was more nurturant, generative, and optimistic than that of brave exemplars; these somewhat divergent personality profiles imply multiple ideals of moral maturity.
224 citations
20 Dec 2008
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors proposed the use of autonomous robots in the field of war, which can replace the human soldier in an increasing range of dangerous missions: from tunneling through dark caves in search of terrorists, to securing urban streets rife with sniper fire, to patrolling the skies and waterways where there is little cover from attacks, to clearing roads and seas of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), to surveying damage from biochemical weapons, to guarding borders and buildings, to controlling potentially-hostile crowds, and even as the infantry frontlines.
Abstract: : Imagine the face of warfare with autonomous robotics: Instead of our soldiers returning home in flag-draped caskets to heartbroken families, autonomous robots-mobile machines that can make decisions, such as to fire upon a target, without human intervention-can replace the human soldier in an increasing range of dangerous missions: from tunneling through dark caves in search of terrorists, to securing urban streets rife with sniper fire, to patrolling the skies and waterways where there is little cover from attacks, to clearing roads and seas of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), to surveying damage from biochemical weapons, to guarding borders and buildings, to controlling potentially-hostile crowds, and even as the infantry frontlines. These robots would be 'smart' enough to make decisions that only humans now can; and as conflicts increase in tempo and require much quicker information processing and responses, robots have a distinct advantage over the limited and fallible cognitive capabilities that we Homo sapiens have. Not only would robots expand the battlespace over difficult, larger areas of terrain, but they also represent a significant force-multiplier-each effectively doing the work of many human soldiers, while immune to sleep deprivation, fatigue, low morale, perceptual and communication challenges in the 'fog of war', and other performance-hindering conditions.
194 citations
23 Jun 2011
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors take the view that sentences with epistemic modal operators taking wide scope are not special and apply to these sentences whatever semantic/pragmatic explanatory strategies we apply to other uncontroversially descriptive, fact-describing discourse.
Abstract: When I tell you that it’s raining, I describe a way the world is—viz., rainy. I say something whose truth turns on how things are with the weather in the world. Likewise when I tell you that the weatherman thinks that it’s raining. Here the truth of what I say turns on how things are with the weatherman’s state of mind in the world. Likewise when I tell you that I think that it’s raining. Here the truth of what I say turns on how things are with my state of mind in the world. Nothing like tedious platitudes to set the mood. Okay—what about when I tell you that it might be raining? Or that it is probably raining? Or that it must be raining? In these cases, am I again to be understood as describing a way the world is? An affirmative answer would be nice. For it would mean less work. It would let us take the view that sentences like these—sentences with epistemic modal operators taking wide scope—are not special. It would let us apply to these sentences whatever semantic/pragmatic explanatory strategies we apply to other uncontroversially descriptive, fact-describing discourse. And, from a distance at least, an affirmative answer seems anyway not hard to pull off. Epistemic modals are so-called, after all, because they seem to serve to communicate information about some epistemic state or state of evidence in the world. One could try, then, understanding epistemically modalized sentences—these sentences about what might or must be, or about what is probable—as telling how things are with some epistemic state or other, or with some body of evidence or other, in the world. Since an affirmative answer means less work and looks not hard to pull off, little wonder that that answer is a very popular one. Indeed, it has some title to being called the standard view about epistemic modality in philosophy. (We will see evidence below.) We can spin the standard view either as a metaphysical thesis or a semantic thesis. The metaphysical thesis is factualism about epistemic modality. To a very rough first approximation, factualism is the idea that for it to be true that it might be (or must be, or probably is) raining is for the world to be configured in a certain way, for a certain state of affairs
183 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a new interpretation or theory of objective chance is proposed, one that lets us be sure such chances exist and shows how they can play the roles we traditionally grant them.
Abstract: The goal of this paper is to sketch and defend a new interpretation or theory of objective chance, one that lets us be sure such chances exist and shows how they can play the roles we traditionally grant them. The subtitle obviously emulates the title of Lewis seminal 1980 paper A Subjectivist s Guide to Objective Chance while indicating an important difference in perspective. The view developed below shares two major tenets with Lewis last (1994) account of objective chance: (1) The Principal Principle tells us most of what we know about objective chance; (2) Objective chances are not primitive modal facts, propensities, or powers, but rather facts entailed by the overall pattern of events and processes in the actual world. But it differs from Lewis’ account in most other respects. Another subtitle I considered was A Humean Guide ... But while the account of chance below is compatible with any stripe of Humeanism (Lewis , Hume s, and others ), it presupposes no general Humean philosophy. Only a skeptical attitude about probability itself is presupposed (as in point (2) above); what we should say about causality, laws, modality and so on is left a separate question. Still, I will label the account to be developed “Humean objective chance”.
156 citations
References
More filters
01 Dec 2008
TL;DR: The situated cognition movement in the cognitive sciences, like those sciences themselves, is a loose-knit family of approaches to understanding the mind and cognition that has developed primarily since the late 1970s as an alternative to, or a modification of, the then predominant paradigms for exploring the mind within the cognitive Sciences.
Abstract: 1. The Situation in Cognition The situated cognition movement in the cognitive sciences, like those sciences themselves, is a loose-knit family of approaches to understanding the mind and cognition. While it has both philosophical and psychological antecedents in thought stretching back over the last century (see Gallagher, this volume, Clancey, this volume,), it has developed primarily since the late 1970s as an alternative to, or a modification of, the then predominant paradigms for exploring the mind within the cognitive sciences. For this reason it has been common to characterize situated cognition in terms of what it is not, a cluster of "anti-isms". Situated cognition has thus been described as opposed to Platonism, Cartesianism, individualism, representationalism, and even
234 citations
TL;DR: It was found that moral exemplars had stronger motivational themes of both agency and communion, were more likely to construe critical life events redemptively, more frequently identified helpers in early life, and reported more secure attachments.
Abstract: Two contrasting types of moral exemplars were examined so as to identify personality variables associated with moral action. The sample comprised 50 Canadian awardees for either exceptional bravery or caring, as well as 50 comparison participants. Participants responded to a set of personality questionnaires and a life-review interview. Personality variables were found to substantially augment moral cognition in the prediction of exemplary action. In support of the notion that there is a personological core to the moral domain, it was found that moral exemplars were distinguished from the comparison groups by themes embodied in their life narratives. Specifically, moral exemplars had stronger motivational themes of both agency and communion, were more likely to construe critical life events redemptively, more frequently identified helpers in early life, and reported more secure attachments. Furthermore, the personality of caring exemplars was more nurturant, generative, and optimistic than that of brave exemplars; these somewhat divergent personality profiles imply multiple ideals of moral maturity.
224 citations
20 Dec 2008
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors proposed the use of autonomous robots in the field of war, which can replace the human soldier in an increasing range of dangerous missions: from tunneling through dark caves in search of terrorists, to securing urban streets rife with sniper fire, to patrolling the skies and waterways where there is little cover from attacks, to clearing roads and seas of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), to surveying damage from biochemical weapons, to guarding borders and buildings, to controlling potentially-hostile crowds, and even as the infantry frontlines.
Abstract: : Imagine the face of warfare with autonomous robotics: Instead of our soldiers returning home in flag-draped caskets to heartbroken families, autonomous robots-mobile machines that can make decisions, such as to fire upon a target, without human intervention-can replace the human soldier in an increasing range of dangerous missions: from tunneling through dark caves in search of terrorists, to securing urban streets rife with sniper fire, to patrolling the skies and waterways where there is little cover from attacks, to clearing roads and seas of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), to surveying damage from biochemical weapons, to guarding borders and buildings, to controlling potentially-hostile crowds, and even as the infantry frontlines. These robots would be 'smart' enough to make decisions that only humans now can; and as conflicts increase in tempo and require much quicker information processing and responses, robots have a distinct advantage over the limited and fallible cognitive capabilities that we Homo sapiens have. Not only would robots expand the battlespace over difficult, larger areas of terrain, but they also represent a significant force-multiplier-each effectively doing the work of many human soldiers, while immune to sleep deprivation, fatigue, low morale, perceptual and communication challenges in the 'fog of war', and other performance-hindering conditions.
194 citations
23 Jun 2011
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors take the view that sentences with epistemic modal operators taking wide scope are not special and apply to these sentences whatever semantic/pragmatic explanatory strategies we apply to other uncontroversially descriptive, fact-describing discourse.
Abstract: When I tell you that it’s raining, I describe a way the world is—viz., rainy. I say something whose truth turns on how things are with the weather in the world. Likewise when I tell you that the weatherman thinks that it’s raining. Here the truth of what I say turns on how things are with the weatherman’s state of mind in the world. Likewise when I tell you that I think that it’s raining. Here the truth of what I say turns on how things are with my state of mind in the world. Nothing like tedious platitudes to set the mood. Okay—what about when I tell you that it might be raining? Or that it is probably raining? Or that it must be raining? In these cases, am I again to be understood as describing a way the world is? An affirmative answer would be nice. For it would mean less work. It would let us take the view that sentences like these—sentences with epistemic modal operators taking wide scope—are not special. It would let us apply to these sentences whatever semantic/pragmatic explanatory strategies we apply to other uncontroversially descriptive, fact-describing discourse. And, from a distance at least, an affirmative answer seems anyway not hard to pull off. Epistemic modals are so-called, after all, because they seem to serve to communicate information about some epistemic state or state of evidence in the world. One could try, then, understanding epistemically modalized sentences—these sentences about what might or must be, or about what is probable—as telling how things are with some epistemic state or other, or with some body of evidence or other, in the world. Since an affirmative answer means less work and looks not hard to pull off, little wonder that that answer is a very popular one. Indeed, it has some title to being called the standard view about epistemic modality in philosophy. (We will see evidence below.) We can spin the standard view either as a metaphysical thesis or a semantic thesis. The metaphysical thesis is factualism about epistemic modality. To a very rough first approximation, factualism is the idea that for it to be true that it might be (or must be, or probably is) raining is for the world to be configured in a certain way, for a certain state of affairs
183 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a new interpretation or theory of objective chance is proposed, one that lets us be sure such chances exist and shows how they can play the roles we traditionally grant them.
Abstract: The goal of this paper is to sketch and defend a new interpretation or theory of objective chance, one that lets us be sure such chances exist and shows how they can play the roles we traditionally grant them. The subtitle obviously emulates the title of Lewis seminal 1980 paper A Subjectivist s Guide to Objective Chance while indicating an important difference in perspective. The view developed below shares two major tenets with Lewis last (1994) account of objective chance: (1) The Principal Principle tells us most of what we know about objective chance; (2) Objective chances are not primitive modal facts, propensities, or powers, but rather facts entailed by the overall pattern of events and processes in the actual world. But it differs from Lewis’ account in most other respects. Another subtitle I considered was A Humean Guide ... But while the account of chance below is compatible with any stripe of Humeanism (Lewis , Hume s, and others ), it presupposes no general Humean philosophy. Only a skeptical attitude about probability itself is presupposed (as in point (2) above); what we should say about causality, laws, modality and so on is left a separate question. Still, I will label the account to be developed “Humean objective chance”.
156 citations